The Making of Mary
J >> Jean Forsyth >> The Making of Mary"Yer mither kens fine what she's aboot, an' ye needna fash yer heids tae
come cryin' tae me."
She even went so far as to back Mary up in her suggestion that the boys
should eat what was set before them, asking no questions.
"That's the w'y yer faither was brocht up. If he didna finish his
parritch in the mornin', they were warmed up for him again at nicht. Ye
tak' but a spinfu' 'at ye could hardly ca' parritch, for they're jist
puzhioned wi' sugar."
Mary was not naturally fond of children, and, having entered our family
full-grown, she found it hard to put up with the freaks of our six,
there being no foundation of sisterly love upon which to build
toleration.
Belle's housekeeping had always been lavish. She ordered her groceries
wholesale, and when they were done never inquired what had become of
them.
"I decline to go into details--life is too short! I don't know where my
patience ends and my laziness begins, but I'd rather be cheated than
lock things up, or try to keep track of what Margaret wastes. She's not
an ideal 'general,' but it's only one in a hundred that would stand the
children pottering about in the kitchen so much."
After the time-worn custom of new brooms, Mary made a bold attempt to
record each item of expenditure, and ordered what she wanted from day to
day; but there was no calculating the appetites of four growing boys,
especially when, as Mary affirmed, they sometimes over-ate themselves
just to spite her.
"We're living from hand to mouth, _pa_pa," they would say, when an
unwonted scarcity occurred.
Truth to tell, I began to sympathize with my revolting sons when I
brought an old friend home with me to dinner one day, and went to
announce the fact to our "housekeeper."
"I just wish that Bob Mansell would quit coming here so much when he's
not expected. There's only enough pudding for ourselves."
"Mary," said I sternly, "Mr. Mansell's been coming to this house before
you were here, and he'll keep on coming after you're gone, if you're not
careful."
It was the first time I had ever spoken sharply to her, and I flattered
myself that I had done some good, though she held her head high and left
the room.
Belle came to the conclusion that the housekeeping scheme did not work
smoothly, and she resumed the reins of government. Mary was still
supposed to do the work of a second maid, but it was evident that her
heart was not in it.
"What does Mary want now?" I asked my wife when she took her usual seat
beside me, as I lay on the sofa with my pipe.
"She thinks she'd like to go to the Boston School of Oratory to prepare
herself to be a public reader."
"Is it necessary that she should be before the public in one way or
another?"
"She doesn't seem to be much of a success in private life."
"In that respect she's no worse than half the girls in town. None of
them dote on housework."
"But, considering that this girl has no earthly claim on us, you'd think
she might be different."
"Don't be angry, Belle, at my saying so, but you've only yourself to
thank for that. You've been most anxious that Mary should be just like
one of ourselves--should not feel that she was accepting charity, and
you've succeeded only too well. The girl takes everything you do for her
as her right, and asks for more."
"Well, what about Boston?"
"I think it would be arrant folly to send her there. How do we know she
has any more talent for elocution than for music?"
"She has the desire to learn. I suppose that's a sign of the ability."
"She has an intense desire for admiration, that's about the size of it.
To be the center of all eyes, giving a recitation in a drawing room,
pleases her down to the ground, but it doesn't follow that she would be
a success professionally."
"I dare say we've spent about as much on her education as you care to do
just now."
"We have indeed!"
My wife and I are much in demand at all the social functions of our
town, and, though I accompany her under protest, I confess that, once
the affair is in full swing, I enjoy as much as anybody a hand at
"Pedro" or a dance.
The houses of our city are mostly wooden and mostly new, for an annual
conflagration keeps building brisk. Hardwood floors and mantels are the
order of the day, and if some of our lumbermen and their wives have not
a command of English grammar in keeping with their horses, their
sealskins, and their diamonds, they have a heartier than an English
welcome--except, of course, for guests of such questionable antecedents
as our Mary.
Mrs. David Gemmell is a bright and witty woman, though I say it, who
should not. But why should I not? She did not inherit her wits from me.
Mrs. David Gemmell let the leading ladies of the town understand that
unless Mary was invited to everything that was going on, we stayed away
ourselves. Lake City society could not proceed without Isabel, so the
"white elephant" was received in her train, and truly she did us credit
in company, if nowhere else. She was always stylishly dressed, and her
dancing was a joy forever. We did not marvel when Will Axworthy, the
most eligible young man about, took it into his head to introduce the
german to our benighted citizens, that he chose Mary for his partner to
lead it with him. She had private lessons from himself, as well as from
the dancing master, and proud and happy were Belle and I to sit at the
side of the ballroom and watch her going through the figures and
bestowing her favors with all the grace and dignity of one of the four
hundred.
"She shall go to Boston to-morrow, if she wants to," said I, but this
time Belle demurred.
"I think she seems likely to have a good time here this winter, and we
may as well let her have her fling."
The prophecy was fulfilled. In spite of the supreme jealousy of the
other girls, who could not say mean enough things about her, Mary
became quite the rage with the young men.
One Sunday afternoon Will Axworthy called. He is short and broad, has
reddish hair and a chronic blush hardly to be looked for in the Ward
McAllister of Lake City. Too nervously did he plant himself in my frisky
spring rocker, and therefore involuntarily did he present the soles of
his boots to the assembled family, while his head bumped the wall, to
the huge delight of our boys!
Undaunted by that inauspicious beginning, he came again the next Sunday,
smoked my best cigars, and talked lumber, the one subject upon which he
is posted, for he was the manager of a mill here.
He stayed to supper that evening and went with Mary to church afterward.
Then he called for her with a cutter the first bright day, and took her
sleigh riding. The embryo wrinkle left Belle's forehead.
"Do you really think he means anything?" said she.
"Don't be too sanguine about it. Nowadays, young men pay a girl a great
deal of attention with nothing in their heads but a good time."
"Still, Axworthy's no boy. He's thirty if he's a day, and he has a good
salary, and can afford to marry whenever the mood takes him."
"Let us hope and pray that it may take him soon!"
"Amen!" said Belle solemnly.
The daily friction with her _protegee_ was becoming too much for the
good-natured patience even of my better half. Acting upon generous
impulses is all very fine, but they need to be backed up by a large
amount of endurance and tolerance if the results are to be successfully
dealt with.
From my vantage-ground on the nursery sofa, behind my screen of
newspaper, I frequently hear more than is suspected by the family.
"Mary, you're not going to the rink to-night!" in Belle's most imploring
tone.
"Yes, mawm, I am. Lend me your wrench, Watty."
"Mary, I positively forbid you to go to the rink!"
"Well, I do think that's just too mean for anything. Every girl in town
goes."
"Every girl in town doesn't skate with barber, or bandsman, or anybody
who comes along, as you do."
"Watty's been telling!"
"Watty hasn't been telling!" broke in our eldest son in indignant
protest, which he further emphasized by going out and banging the door
after him.
"And, Mary," Belle continued, "are you engaged to Mr. Axworthy?"
"No!" sullenly.
"Then if I were you I wouldn't let him kiss me when he says
'Good-night' at the door after bringing you home from a party."
"You're old-fashioned. All the girls do it!"
"No _lady_ would permit a man to take such a liberty. You're spoiling
your chances with Mr. Axworthy, I can tell you. I never knew a man yet
that would bind himself to a girl when he could have all the privileges
of an engaged man, and none of the responsibilities."
"I don't care anything at all about him. I don't want to marry him. He's
just giving me a good time."
A good time he undoubtedly did give her throughout the winter. To the
smartest balls and parties he was her escort, and she always wore the
roses he never neglected to send. Every Sunday about dusk he would come
round to our house, and, martyrs to a good cause, Isabel, mother, and I
vacated the cozy parlor with its easy chairs and blazing fire for the
nursery--always uproarious with children on that day.
"I wonder what those two find to talk about," speculated Belle. "Mary
has no conversation at all, and Axworthy hasn't much more."
"Perhaps he takes it out in looking at her. By the way, Belle, when are
you going to appear in the new dress I gave you that fifty dollars to
buy? I am quite tired of the mauve tea gown."
My wife glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Grandma was out of
hearing.
"The truth is, Dave, I thought I must wait to see how much of it I had
left after getting Mary rigged up for the Robinsons' dance. She goes out
so often that she needs a change of evening dress."
"Did she ask for it?"
"Not directly, but she remarked that she didn't see what I wanted with
a new black silk, that I had plenty of clothes, and that when she was my
age she didn't think she'd bother about what she had to wear."
I sprang up from the sofa, prepared to shove Mary out of the house, neck
and crop, but Belle's outburst of laughter calmed me.
"Her cheek is so great that it passes from the ridiculous to the
sublime!"
"Why do you stand it, Belle? You wouldn't from anybody else."
"I can't very well go back on her at this stage, and send her about her
business. She's shrewd enough to know that."
"People would laugh; that's so!"
"Besides, if she marries Axworthy, she'll be our social equal here in
this town, and it must never be in her power to say that we did not
treat her well."
"What is the prospect with Axworthy?"
"Good, I think. He is thoroughly kind to her, and he has given me plenty
of hints about the state of his affections, hopes by another winter that
Mary will have somebody else to look after her, and so on. He is always
most particular in seeing that she is well wrapped up, and that is
highly necessary, for she is extremely careless about how she goes out.
In spite of a certain amount of physical dash, she isn't a bit strong;
has no staying power."
"It won't be much fun for Axworthy to be saddled with a delicate wife."
"Well, I guess he needs some discipline, just as much as I do. I've had
my share out of Miss Mary for the last three years, and I am quite
willing to let somebody else have a turn. He walks into this thing with
his eyes open. He knows her history."
"But does he know her disposition?"
"Let him find that out--if he can. Most mothers don't think it necessary
to tell their daughters' suitors how the girls get on with them in the
house."
"You say she has no constitution. Supposing he does marry her, how about
the possible children? What have they done that they should have Mary
for a mother?"
"That's exactly the right way to put it--what have they done? We don't
know, but they must have gone far astray last time, if they are given
such a bad start this incarnation."
Will Axworthy left town in the spring. Lumber was done in our part of
Michigan and he had to follow it further south. He and Mary
corresponded, for I caught Belle in the act of correcting one of her
letters.
"Do you think that's quite fair to Axworthy? If they become engaged, the
first unedited letter he gets from Mary will be considerable of a
surprise to him."
"Don't you bother your old head, Dave! I'm running this thing! He's
arranging to meet us in Chicago, and hopes to have the pleasure of
showing Mary the Columbian Exhibition. Something is sure to happen while
we're there!"
CHAPTER VI.
ALL winter we had been talking about the Fair, reading up about the
Fair, making plans for the Fair; and Belle declared that even if she
never saw the Fair she would be glad it had been, on account of the
amount of preparatory information she had laid up.
We did get off at last in the end of June, the whole of us, including
Mary, of course--my first experience of traveling in her company. We
went to Chicago by boat,--a night's crossing,--and a rare time I had
securing berths for the family in the overcrowded propeller. I was
thankful for an "extension," a sort of shell run out between two
staterooms and partitioned off by curtains and poles. The boys had to
sleep on sofas, floor, anywhere, which to them was but the beginning of
the fun.
The first of my Herculean labors at an end, I was enjoying my smoke aft
in the cool of the evening, when Belle came back to me, her brow drawn
up into what I had begun to call the "Mary wrinkle."
"David, I'm afraid you'll have to talk to that girl. She's sitting up in
the bow there flirting with one of the waiters, and though I've sent
Watty twice after her, she won't stir."
As majestically as my five feet four would permit, I moved to the front
of the boat.
"Mary, Mrs. Gemmell wants you right away."
She took time to exchange a laughing farewell with the good-looking
waiter, and explained to me _en route_:
"That's Bill Moreland. I knew him quite well in Lake City. I've met him
at balls."
In the morning before we reached Chicago, she managed to get in a long
confabulation with another waiter, whom I am sure she had never met in
Lake City, nor anywhere else.
"See here, Mary! If this is the way you're going to behave, you go
straight back to Lake City on that boat, and don't see one bit of the
Fair."
Her manners were mended till we were actually in Jackson Park, but then:
"She's a philanthropist, Belle, a lover of _man_kind--Columbian Guard,
Gospel Charioteer, Turk in the bazaar. The creed or the color doesn't
matter so long as he calls himself a man."
I am afraid I was cross, for it did not take one day to realize what an
undertaking it was going to be to keep track of my family, who had never
before seemed too numerous. Daily at 10 A. M., in the Michigan Building,
did I hand over to Will Axworthy the most troublesome of the lot, and
daily did I wish he would keep her for better or worse.
On the Fourth of July cannonading began at daybreak, and for once I
sympathized in my mother's objection to the license accorded to young
Americans. They set off firecrackers, not by the bunch but by the
bushel; kerosene and dynamite were their ambrosia and nectar. What with
fighting for lunch in overcrowded restaurants, and then retaliating by
stealing chairs out of the same, hunting through the various booths in
the Midway to collect my three younger sons when it was time to send
them home, and rescuing my two little girls from an over-supply of ice
cream sodas and chocolate drops, I did not specially enjoy the glorious
Fourth.
Toward evening there was not a foot of Fair ground undecorated by a
banana skin, a crust of bread, or a flying paper. Belle considered the
signs "Keep off the Grass" quite superfluous, and pulling one up by the
roots she sat down on it, thereby keeping the letter, if not the spirit
of the law.
"Now, Dave," said she, "the family are all safe off the grounds, and you
can go and get a gondola to come and take us for a sail before dark.
Everybody is moving toward the lake front to wait for the fireworks, and
the lagoons are not so crowded as they were. Let's pretend we're on our
honeymoon."
So seldom does Belle wax sentimental over me, I hailed her proposition
with outward indifference but inward joy. Securing a gondola to
ourselves, in it we were gently swayed through canal and under bridge in
the mystical evening light.
The distant rumble of a train on the Intramural, or a quack from a
sleepy duck among the rushes, alone broke the stillness.
"This is where I belong!" exclaimed Belle. "I've seen before those
Eastern-looking towers and minarets, with the sunset glow on the cloud
masses behind them. Look! there's a Turk and a Hindoo crossing the
bridge. This is the region, this the soil, the clime. I always knew I
wasn't meant for Western America."
"You must have been very naughty _last time_ to have been raised in
Michigan this trip. Still this is only Chicago!"
"It's not Chicago! It's the world! Listen to that now--the music of the
spheres!"
We approached another gondola that had withdrawn itself from the center
of the channel close in to a small island. The man at the stern was
doing nothing very picturesquely, but the man at the bow, a swarthy
Venetian, was pouring out his soul in an aria from "Cavalleria
Rusticana." His voice might not have passed muster at Covent Garden, but
in the unique stage setting, which included a group of eager listeners
on abridge behind him, one could forgive a break on a high note or two.
The singer threw himself into the spirit of the composition, cast his
eyes upward with hand on his heart, and bent them to earth again for the
approval of his passengers. There were but two, a young man and a young
lady, and to the latter was the hero in costume directing his amorous
glances.
"There's romance for you!" said I to Belle, who is notoriously on the
lookout for it. I directed our gondolier to draw nearer to his
enamoured compatriot. My wife replied uneasily:
"I don't know the man, or boy, for that's all he is, but if that isn't
Mary's hat----"
"Mary! Phew! What's become of Axworthy?"
As we approached the comfortable-looking pair, Mary bowed to us
smilingly, and called the attention of her companion to her "father and
mother"--darn her impudence!
The boat ride was spoiled for Belle and me, our white elephant having
arisen to haunt us once more. We landed and walked over to the lake
front, where the whole slope was packed with people waiting for the
fireworks to begin.
Someone started to sing "Way Down upon the Swanee Ribber," and everybody
joined in. "Nearer, my God, to Thee" was also most impressive from the
vast impromptu chorus. In the foreground Lake Michigan lay darkly
expectant, with a large black cloud upon its horizon, though the stars
shone overhead. A half-circle of boats extended from the long Exhibition
Wharf on the right, round to the warship _Illinois_ on the left, and
from the latter a search light, an omnipresent eye, swept the crowd with
rapidly veering glance, till it concentrated its gaze on the dark
balloon which rose so mysteriously from the water. Suddenly from this
balloon was suspended the Stars and Stripes in colored lights. The crowd
cheered like mad, the boats whistled, and sent up rockets galore.
On went the programme. Bombs tested the strength of our wearied
ear-drums, fiery snakes sizzled through the air, big wheels spurted
brilliant marvels, and along the very edge of the lake, to the great
discomfort of the front rows of the stalls, a line of combustibles
behaved like gigantic footlights on a spree.
"David, who do you suppose that was with Mary?"
I had been up in the air with George Washington, surrounded by "First in
War, First in Peace, etc.," in letters of fire, and I was unwillingly
recalled to earth.
"Haven't the remotest idea. Hope she hasn't given Axworthy the slip."
"I'm only hoping that he has not given her the slip. I'd never have
brought her to the Fair if he hadn't agreed to look after her."
At that moment there was a surging of the mighty crowd, caused by a band
of college students pushing their way through, shoulder to shoulder,
singing one of their rousing ditties. Some people who had been standing
on their hired rolling chairs had narrow escapes from being flung upon
the shoulders of those in front. Some did not escape--Mary for
instance, who landed between us as if shot from a catapult.
"I knew I was going to fall, so I just jumped to where I seen you two,"
said she, with her customary calmness, and then she turned to assure her
escort of the gondola, who was anxiously elbowing his way to her, that
she was entirely unhurt.
Blushing prettily, she introduced the lad as "Mr. Tom Axworthy--cousin
of the Mr. Axworthy you know."
Mr. Tom talked to Mrs. Gemmell with the ease and assurance of ninety
rather than nineteen, while I exchanged a few words aside with the
maiden:
"Where is the Mr. Axworthy that we know?"
"He had some business to do in town to-night, so he left me in charge of
this cousin of his--just a lovely fellow!"
"Humph! Introduced you to any more of his relations?"
"Oh, yes--an uncle; quite an old bachelor, but lovely too!"
"And I suppose you've been round with the uncle as well."
"Not very much. He was to have taken me up in the balloon yesterday, but
the cyclone burst it."
"We're going home now, and I think you'd better say 'Good-night' to Mr.
Tom Axworthy and come with us."
After waiting two hours and a half for standing room on a suburban
train, we reached the hotel at an early hour on July the 5th, dusty,
smoke-stained, and powder-scented, like veterans from a field of battle.
That was not by any means the last of Mr. Tom Axworthy. During the
remainder of our stay in Chicago it was he quite as frequently as his
more mature and eligible cousin who exchanged a lingering farewell with
Mary at the ladies' entrance to our hotel, and a great fear arose in the
heart of Belle that the young woman was fooling away her time with this
impecunious boy, instead of making the most of her opportunities to come
to a satisfactory understanding with his cousin. Every morning did she
gaze pathetically into my face, saying:
"I do hope Axworthy will propose to-day!" and once she added:
"I cannot face another winter in the same house with that girl and your
mother. Grandma has taken it into her head that Mary is my pet lamb, the
idol of my heart, for whom she, and you too, have been set aside. She
doesn't see that it worries me half to death to have Mary tagging round
after me the whole time, and overrunning the house with her beaux.
Neither of our own girls is old enough yet, thank goodness, to consider
herself my companion and equal, to wear my gloves, my boots, my best
hairpins, and to use my favorite perfume; to come and plant herself down
beside me whenever I'm talking confidentially to anyone, to be
determined to have her finger into every pie, to know what I'm reading
or thinking about. She'll insist on knowing my dreams next!"
"Perhaps you mesmerize her."
"If I did, I'd make her keep away from me! I could stand it all better
if I thought she really cared a straw for me, but I have the feeling
that she regards me merely as a basis for supplies."
"We can only trust, then, that the basis may be speedily transferred to
Axworthy!"
On our return from the World's Fair, the family stopped off at
Interlaken, but I had to go on into town to the _Echo_ office. To my
surprise, Mary joined me at my solitary dinner at the "House of the
Seven Gables," where Margaret, as usual, was in charge, and she remained
there for the rest of the week.
"Where's Mary?" was Belle's greeting, when I joined her on Saturday.
"She's in town."
"Why didn't you bring her out with you?"
"Didn't know you wanted her. She said she'd like to stay in Lake City
over Sunday, to take the Communion."
"Take the Communion indeed! She wants to be left there alone with
Margaret, so that she'll have a chance to flirt with every man in town.
I thought you had more sense, David."
I pulled my soft felt hat further over my diminished head.
"Did she get any letters?"
"One or two."
"Wretch! I told her to come out here with you to-night for certain."
Monday morning, mother, who had been spending the summer with my married
sister in Lake City, came out to stay for a week with us at Interlaken.
She could hardly wait till the youngsters were out of hearing to pour
her story into my ears. I had to take back to town the train by which
she had come out, but she made the most of her time.
"There's been great doin's in yer hoose in yer absence. Marg'et 's been
tellin' yer sister's servant a' aboot Mary's luv affairs. Mary tell't
her 'at Eesabelle bade her write Willum Axworthy an' spier his
intentions; that if she didna, Mrs. Davvit said she'd d'it hersel'. An'
a' the time she's correspondin' wi' a yunger ane, an Axworthy tae, 'at
she tells Marg'et she likes a hape better. Yer sister's sair affronted
to think o' the w'y the fem'ly name's bein' cairted thro' the mire."
Belle came out on the veranda, her broad hat in her hand, ready to walk
down to the train with me.